Shortcuts: Dalindèo, Benny Sings, Some Freak & Andreya Triana & Ritornell

Three releases covering a broad spectrum of jazz – of which one free!

First release from the Finnish formation Dalindèo after their excellent Open Scenes album. They have been touring in 2008, and are now ready to drop their second full length in the fall, on Ricky-Tick of course. This EP is a taster of things to come…

It opens with Willpower (preview on MySpace) featuring the beloved songstress Bajka on vocal duties. It’s a powerful percussive track with great flute and brass arrangements that perfectly underscores her spoken word lyrics. The two other tracks on the EP are classic examples of the typical scandinavian nujazz/bossa for which Ricky-Tick is known: uptempo tunes with lots of variation, strong focus on rhythm, great unisono brass melodies, and all that in perfect bite-size portions. I can’t get enough of it, and I look forward to that new album!

In the first week of this year, a bunch of Dutch musicians came together in The Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam and recorded an album. No hassle, just having fun on instruments while leaving the recording running. Probably the most famous of these musicians is Benny Sings, so it comes as no surprise that the whole album sounds a lot like his personal works. It’s less polished though, after all the production wasn’t big budget. It still is a very enjoyable little album though, 9 tracks full of jolly little pop melodies and sweet vocals. And you know the best part of it? It’s a free album. You can go download it now on their website! It’s a no-brainer.

The Light is the result of a jam session by three 2006 Red Bull Music Academy graduates. It’s finally been polished and prepped for release on the new Wald Entertainment label, accompanied by a handful of remixes.

The original is a very eerie and bare piece, with only some percussion, piano and flutes to support Andreya’s whispering lyrics. Dorian Concept adds some slow breaks and a bucket of sound effects, but retains the atmosphere of the original. The last two remixers take a more drastic approach: Patrick Pulsinger pulls the electro card while Orakel do what they do best. You might know Orakel better as Oracle, the Austrian guys from the Comeonfeet! collective who opened our third Beyondjazz compilation in 2006. Now they’re back, about to release their debut album, and they warped the original tune into a wild acoustic broken beat extravaganza. Check it out!